Slow Cooked Beef Bourguignon

One of the problems when you are first trying a new slow cooker recipe is the anticipation. You have picked from hundreds of recipes online or in cook books, you have hunted out all the ingredients, entrusted them to the large pot and placed the lid on top. Yet at this point you have to wait, often for 8 hours.

If I am in the unfortunate position to be home while I am slow cooking, I’ll spend too much time peering through the condensation.

An ongoing internal dialogue as to whether I should lift up the lid, only for a moment, just to check.

They say lifting the lid on a slow cooker adds 30 minutes to the cooking time, I say lifting the lid on a slow-cooker is tantamount to opening Christmas presents and resealing before putting them back under the tree.

It ruins the surprise.

When you do eventually lift the lid off it can all to easily be a disappointment after being built up for so long. This recipe, however, will be no disappointment.

When I was 12 my Dad asked me what I wanted for my special birthday night meal. I guess he expected me to say pizza, or some other kind of junk food. What I actually asked for is Beef in Red Wine sauce, a casserole that cooked in the oven for hours emitting wonderful smells into the house. I don’t actually know the recipe my Dad used for that meal – but I’ll be sure to ask him next time I see him.

It’s been years since I’ve had Beef in Red Wine Sauce, then this week I saw Lindaraxa’s recipe was one of the most viewed on CookEatShare for a simplified version of Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon I knew I had to try it. Having never seen the original recipe even the simplified recipe looked quite complicated to me. You have to cook it on the stove, put it in the oven, take it back out, leave to rest and then put on for final cook. That’s fine for a long Sunday afternoon, but what about a Thursday night – or a Saturday lunch?

The original Beef Bourguigon recipe was a recipe made by French peasants to tenderise tough cuts of meat, but I know another a great way of tenderising meat. Slow Cooking.

Enjoy, and as if you needed anymore encouragement – get that Slow Cooker or Crock Pot out the back of the cupboard.

Slow Cooked Beef Bourguignon

Use your crock pot or slow-cooker to make this slow cooked beef bourguignon – a simplified version of Julia Child’s classic dish.

Preparation Time:30 min (45 if you need to peel the small onions).Cooking Time:8 hours, plus 20 minutes to reheat (or if necessary 10 minutes to thicken the sauce).Cooking Temperature: Low.

4 slices of bacon, in strips. Cut the rind off but use in the cooking process

500 grams of cubed beef, suitable for a casserole. I used rump steak.

1 sliced carrot

1onion, sliced

1 tsp of flour, plus another 2 tablespoons for sauce thickening

1 and 1/2 cups of Red Wine, conveniently I had a bottle of French Red Wine for Burgundy

1 and 1/2 cups of Beef Stock, I used a bouillon cube

1 tablespoon of Tomato Paste / Puree

2 cloves of garlic, pureed.

Few sprigs of fresh Thyme

2Bay Leaves. The recipe I used suggested crumbling them, I would advise against this. I did this the first time and I got left with crumbled bay leaf in my mouth – which was not great.

10 – 18small white onions. These small onions are hard to get hold of in the UK, they are the ones used for pickling onions. I used shallots instead which are much bigger, and I used two per person, after choosing the smallest I could find.

If you know Julia Childs recipe you will see that I have cut out some of the ingredients, the extra butter and cognac, you can add them back in if you wish.

Pre-heat your slow cooker. I always turn mine on to max heat, while preparing the contents.

Heat a frying pan under a medium heat and add the bacon and the rind fat with around 30 ml of water.

Cook for 5 minutes until the bacon is starting to brown and the water mostly evaporated. Add the bacon, not the rinds, to the slow cooker.

With the bacon fat still left in the frying pan place back on heat and add the cubed beef, start to brown.

Once the beef is browned all over, add the teaspoon of flour and coat the beef in it. Again add the beef to the slow cooker, leaving the bacon rinds in the frying pan.

Removing the worst of the leftover flour from the pan, again put it back on the heat, this time adding the sliced onion, garlic and carrots. Cook them stirring to ensure they don’t burn for around 5 minutes. (You can add more oil if you think it is necessary).

Heat until the liquid is starting to bubble, making sure all your ingredients are hot when entering the slow cooker is the key to using it correctly – especially if cooking at a low temperature.

Add the mixture to your slow cooker, turn the heat down to low and place on the lid.

Leave for 8 hours. The first time I made this I put it on in the morning before work and left it till I came home, after which I immediately followed with the last section. The second I finally put the lid on at midnight and turned it off at 8 o’clock in the morning. I then left it for several hours before continuing.

Once you are ready to eat this dish add the entire contents of the slow cooker to a pan under a medium heat. In a slow cooker it is hard to create a thick sauce because no water evaporates (this is why the recipe uses less beef stock and wine than the non-slow cooked version). Twenty minutes in a pan if from cold, and 10 if from heated should be enough to evaporate some of the extra water out of the sauce, if you wish to thicken further remove some of the liquid maybe around 4 tablespoons and add to a bowl, then add the 2 tablespoons of flour mix until smooth and then add back in.

Stir the sauce occasionally to keep all the meat and vegetables covered with sauce, so they don’t dry out. Once your sauce is suitably thick and warm, serve, either with new potatoes and veg, or with noodles. I have also tried this with Cauliflower Mash, which was a great low-carb option.

There are many steps to this recipe but each individual step is simple, however the resulting dish is wonderfully complex and by far one of my favourite ever slow cooker recipes – if not just my favourite recipe!

I grew up learning how to cook food fast and in high heat that’s why im inclined to teaching myself a few slow cookers..i love the torture..that growing anticipation, that much-awaited moment of opening the lid to check if it’s already “fork-tender” and witness the “meat-falls-off-from-the-bone action..ahhh..this one looks delish!

I have to admit I love high heat fast food, when I first started cooking for myself a lot of my recipes were stir fries. In fact we usually still have them at least once a week. I love them because of the immediacy and the flavours. However once you realise that as long as you put the slow cooker on before you go out for the day, you can have dinner on the table even faster than the fastest of stirfry!

I’m not a big fan of Slow cooking, however, I’m retired so I can spend all day messing around in the kitchen. I really like the take you have on the Beef Bourguignon. I would like to try your version of it… You have a very nice blog, and some very nice photography work. Keep up the great work,
mike long

Lauren, you’ve captured perfectly, the almost clammy anticipation and hand wringing indecision I associate with slowcooking 😀 “Peering through the condensation” sums it up superbly. A beautifully written post that I enjoyed reading very much 🙂

Thanks Sarah for your comment, I love slow cooking too! We are in redecorating mode at the moment and taking a few minutes out to pop on the slow cooker pays dividends after a hard days painting. This recipe is still my favourite though!

YUM this sounds awesome! I have a crock pot of Italian Pesto Pork Roast in Red Wine Sauce sitting on my counter tempting me to look this VERY MOMENT! I will have to make this recipe next! Tis the season for Slow Cooked wonders!

Hi Antony, hope you like it when it is finished! Funnily enough I got a very similar text message from my sister yesterday – who was also making this recipe 🙂

Christine

Having bought 6 bottles of cheap “delicious” wine..haha!!.. ok for cooking!! am looking for slow cook recipes using red wine. This looks just right, so will try it Thursday!! (Mind you, last time I used slow cooker, came home from work and carrots still hard… after 8 hours!!) looking forward to trying!! thanks for recipe!!

Hi Christine, when cooking veg like carrots its best to cut them small and cook them slightly before you put them in the slow cooker. Then they shouldn’t be so hard 🙂

ani

yummy!
woke up this morning to a waft of beef b. aromas!! even woke small child up ( not good!).
had a quick taste – absolutely delicious – easily good enough to serve at a dinner party with nice veg and mash or little new pots.
just one thing – recipe failed to say where to put the garlic???? Also do NOT be tempted to add salt – bacon is enough to add salty flavour – otherwise it will be too salty.

this is a great recipe – simple and delicious – and can be made the night before so even better!

We had the worst possible BB in Paris last week so i was determined to give my other half a real BB and i think i have achieved it!
Does anyone have a recipe for the mashed potato we ate in France – something was added to it – not sure what but it was a very creamy mash and almost a light brown colour? tasted a bit like nutmeg too?? not sure but it was really good.

Thank you for your recipe. I will use it next time, I use my slow cooker.
I have only just started to cook with my slow cooker. I cooked my beef casserole with braising steak and lots of vegetables. After 7 hours on low heat, the steak was not tender. So I turned the cooker up to high for a further hour. It was still tough. It was too late to continue cooking it. So we didn’t eat it. Can you tell me whether it is safe to continue cooking it tomorrow and if so, how much longer do you recommend. I will try YOUR recipe next week and will cut the meat into cubes. I had just put the pieces in the bottom of the cooker whole. Your advice would be appreciated, as I am knew to this way of cooking. THANK YOU.
Thank you.

Hi Barbara, sorry I must have missed this comment while I was on my honeymoon. If after 6 hours it’s not cooked well enough another hour in the slow cooker probably won’t fix it, in that case I would usually stick it on a pan on the hob for half an hour or so – then you would still be able to eat it for dinner that night. However reheating the next day could be a little dicey, if all the meat was cooked through and you kept it in the fridge it might be ok, but I would finish the cooking on the hob under a higher temperature for food safety reasons. If the meat wasn’t cooked through I would probably give up and throw it away. In my opinion it’s not worth the risk. (I should point out I don’t have any formal training in food, so when it comes to safety I can only tell you what I would do, not what might be best).

However this shouldn’t have happened in the first place. So first a couple of questions:

What type of beef did you use? Different cuts are better in a slow cooker than others. For this recipe I often use Beef shin (or hough as it is called in Scotland) this is very tender, but would be terrible for frying.

Too much in your slow cooker will slow down the cooking process, as there is more stuff to heat. I would try less vegetables next time.

You don’t mention how much liquid you put in the slow cooker, while you need less liquid than in other methods of cooking, I usually make sure that at least the meat is completely covered. meat especially can tend to dry out if there isn’t enough liquid. Which could be the reason for the toughness of your meat.

If you don’t think it is any of those problems, I would fall back to the standard issues with slow cooking:

Did you remove the lid too often? (More than once is usually too often for 6 hours). One of the most important things to know in slow cooking is to not remove the lid. Sure you can maybe do it once half way through to stir, but what you have to remember that every time you remove the lid it will increase your cooking time by 30 minutes. If you absolutely positively have to check it, then make sure to replace the lid as quickly as possible, and I would usually turn the heat back up until you can see the condensation form on the lid once more, before turning it back down to the suggested setting.

Were all the ingredients hot when you added them to the pan? The meat should be browned, vegetables softened and all liquid boiling before being poured into the slow cooker. What you need to remember is that the slow-cooker doesn’t generate as much as heat as your oven or hob would, the idea is to cook for longer at a lower temperature. However if you added cold ingredients then you will spend at least the first hour of your cooking time (at least) just warming the ingredients up, instead of what should be keeping them at a constant simmer.

Did you preheat the slow cooker? While a lot of recipes don’t mention pre-heating the slow cooker (and it shouldn’t really be necessary) I always tend to turn mine on high, while I am browning meat etc. Then when all the ingredients are added turn the dial down to the correct setting. I think this can be important, as most slow-cooker recipes tend to suggest adding ingredients one at a time after having them for a brief time in the pan, if you then dump them in a cold slow-cooker they will start to chill back down, during this phase the slow-cooker should always be on and you should keep it covered as much as possible.

Lastly don’t be put off! The first thing I made in the slow cooker the vegetables were still hard, I was more worried about vegetables being over cooked after 6 hours – after that long how could they not be? I think my main problem that time was removing the lid too often. It’s so easy to do, especially when it’s your first recipe.

Hope this helps, and if you have any further questions I would be happy to answer them.

Thanx for a lovely adaptation of this recipe for the slow cooker.
I’ve done it in the oven before and tried it in the slow-cooker today. Loaded it up as I left for the office and came home to yummyness.

While I can’t speak to food-safety issuea, I will tell you that I made a 27hr oxtail in my slow-cooker two weeks ago and I’m still around.

And yes, we just about had it thru straws.

Kathryn

prep work done, ingredients in the crock pot. Fingers crossed i’ll wake up to perfect beef bourginon 😀 thanks for the recipe!

Candy – I use a 3.5L slow cooker, (which I think could fit enough for 6 at a push) so you could either use two or you may be able to fit it into one 6.5L machine.

Derek

Hi Lauren,

Made this yesterday and it was lovely. I used some smoked pancetta which gave it an extra dimension. Managed to get hold of the small onions as well from a local grocer. Thanks v much. I’m looking forward to pinching a few more slow cooker recipes!

Jamie

I made this for 8 people on New Year’s eve. It was SENSATIONAL! Thank you. X

Laura

This recipe is PERFECT. Tried it today-my first ever slow cooker recipe so I was a bit nervous but had no need to be! Thank you so much 🙂 Will definitely be making again, have you any other good slow cooked recipes/or know of a good site to get them? This was so clear and the pictures really helped too, thanks again!!

Mindy Rozenberg

Thanks for the receipe. We moved to France from the US this past Summer. We are having friends over for dinner and I’m going to try it out. Quick question….hard to find broth here, but I do have bouillion cubes. How many do I use and do I add hot water to the cube before sticking it in the crock pot? We have about 10 people coming tomorrow (adults and kids) how much more of the ingredients do I add? Many Thanks, Mindy

Hi Mindy, the recipe is for 4 so I think you would need to multiply the contents by 2.5 to get rough the right amount. Although depending on the number of children you could end up with leftovers. To be honest the leftovers can be reheated, so I would err on the side of caution and do x2.5. I hate to worry about having enough food for people when they come over for meals!!

My recipe doesn’t use broth, it uses stock, you can choose any type of stock including that made using a bouillion cube. The best way is to use the directions on the cube packet. It will usually say something like one cube to 250ml of water, so for a cup and a half I would probably just use 1.

Thank you for this recipe! I’ve made this twice so far (today is the second time). Comes out very lovely – although the first time I used a very cheap cut of beef which was still tough even slow cooked.

Today I have gone for a better cut. We used Merlot both times and found it made quite a nice sauce. I also added 1 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce. I’m tempted to add a small amount of mustard too to increase the heat.